Bogucki P., Crabtree P. Ancient Europe 8000 B.C.-A.D. 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. Volume 2

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vessels and for grindstones made of basalt from the

quarries near Mayen.

CAROLINGIAN PERIOD (

A.D.

751–911)

During the Carolingian period in the Low Coun-

tries and in the German Rhineland, major changes

are apparent in political organization, religion, and

commerce. The Frankish kings of the Merovingian

period gradually created larger kingdoms, and

Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the region in

the year

A.D. 800 by Pope Leo III in Rome. This

event symbolized the accumulated power of the

Frankish kings, the importance of Christianity to

the Frankish world, the recognition in Rome of the

signiﬁcance of Frankish power, and Charlemagne’s

concern with linking his political and cultural aspira-

tions with those of ancient Rome. He made these

connections plain in his capital at Aachen, where his

royal chapel was designed on the plan of the church

of San Vitale at Ravenna. He even had marble col-

umns transported from Italy to Aachen to empha-

size the links between his plans and past Roman

greatness. Charlemagne’s royal hall, where he exer-

cised his political power, was connected directly to

the chapel, providing material expression of the uni-

ﬁcation of worldly power and religious authority.

Ever larger churches were built as Christianity

became an increasingly important feature of life.

The tradition of the Reihengräberfelder faded into

disuse because Christian funerary practices discour-

aged the placing of objects, especially food and

drink, in graves. Cemeteries were established next

to churches, and high-status burials for clergy and

elite citizens were placed underneath church foun-

dations, with the choicest positions being in front

of the altar, a practice known as ad sanctos.

During the late Merovingian and Carolingian

periods commerce grew. In the Rhineland major

pottery industries focusing on export trade grew up

on the west bank south of Cologne at Badorf and

later at Pingsdorf. Products of these workshops ap-

pear throughout the Rhineland and farther aﬁeld, in

northern Germany, Scandinavia, and Britain.

Throughout northern Europe new trade towns de-

veloped from the late seventh century.

GERMANY AND THE LOW COUNTRIES

ANCIENT EUROPE

591

Dorestad, on a branch of the Rhine in the Neth-

erlands, became the principal port for Charle-

magne’s kingdom, bringing in goods from all along

the North Sea and Baltic coasts and exporting pot-

tery, basalt grindstones, and other products of

the Rhineland. Besides being a major transit port,

Dorestad also was home to a wide range of indus-

tries typical of the trading towns that emerged

throughout northern Europe during the ninth and

tenth centuries. Craft workers at Dorestad pro-

cessed metals, carved amber and bone, and wove

textiles. Near the southern end of the Jutland Pen-

insula in Schleswig-Holstein, the port of Haithabu

(Hedeby) became a thriving cosmopolitan center,

transshipping goods between the North Sea and

Rhineland ports and those of Scandinavia and the

Baltic lands (ﬁg. 3). Similar developments are appar-

ent at Quentovic in northern France and at Ham-

burg on the lower Elbe River and Ralswiek on the

Baltic coast, both in northern Germany.

Although Aachen was Charlemagne’s royal cap-

ital, there were still no major urban centers in north-

ern Germany or the Low Countries during this peri-

od. The old Roman centers at such places as

Cologne and Mainz continued as manufacturing

and trading towns but on a much reduced scale

from the Roman period. Thriving agricultural vil-

lages, such as that excavated at Warendorf, showed

a prosperous economy, with active involvement in

the commercial systems of the time but no trace of

town life, which remained restricted to the coasts

and the major river systems. In eastern regions of

northern Germany status differences are well repre-

sented in settlement systems. At Tornow, for exam-

ple, a fortress situated above the village included not

only substantial defensive works but also sizable

storage structures and workshops, all apparently

managed by the local elite groups.

By the end of the Carolingian period in the

tenth century communities throughout the Low

Countries and northern Germany were thoroughly

tied into the expanding economy represented at

trading towns such as Dorestad, Haithabu, and Ral-

swiek. In regions west of the Rhine memories of

Rome as well as physical remains of the empire had

signiﬁcant inﬂuence on thinking about political

power as well as on architecture, religion, and art

and ornament. In lands to the east, with no direct

experience of Roman rule, ideas about the past and

its connections to the present were different. The

Rhineland was to remain a signiﬁcant cultural divide

between west and east for another millennium.

See also Germans (vol. 2, part 6); Merovingian Franks

(vol. 2, part 7); Goths between the Baltic and Black

Seas (vol. 2, part 7); Tomb of Childeric (vol. 2, part

7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Erdrich, Michael. Rom und die Barbaren: Das Verhältnis

zwischen dem Imperium Romanum und den german-

ischen Stämmen vor seiner Nordwestgrenze von der spä-

ten römischen Republik bis zum gallischen Sonderreich.

Mainz, Germany: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2001.

Fehring, Günter. The Archaeology of Medieval Germany.

Translated by Ross Samson. New York: Routledge,

1991.

Geary, Patrick J. Before France and Germany: The Creation

and Transformation of the Merovingian World. New

York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Halsall, Guy. Settlement and Social Organization: The Mero-

vingian Region of Metz. New York: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1995.

Hodges, Richard. Dark Age Economics: The Origins of Towns

and Trade

A.D. 500–1000. 2d ed. London: Duckworth;

New York: St. Martin’s, 1989.

James, Edward. The Franks. New York: Blackwell, 1988.

Randsborg, Klavs. The First Millennium:

A.D. in Europe and

the Mediterranean: An Archaeological Essay. New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Roymans, Nico, ed. From the Sword to the Plough: Three

Studies on the Earliest Romanisation of Northern Gaul.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996.

Theuws, Frans, and Janet L. Nelson, eds. Rituals of Power:

From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Leiden,

Netherlands: Brill, 2000.

Wamser, Ludwig, Christof Flügel, and Bernward Ziegaus,

eds. Die Römer zwischen Alpen und Nordmeer. Mainz,

Germany: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2000.

Wells, Peter S. The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered

Peoples Shaped Roman Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Prince-

ton University Press, 1999.

Wieczorek, Alfried. Die Franken: Wegbereiter Europas: 5. bis

8. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Mainz, Germany: Verlag Philipp

von Zabern, 1996.

ETER S. WELLS

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

592

ANCIENT EUROPE

EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

SOUTHERN GERMANY

■

Modern southern Germany includes the states of

Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and the southern

part of the state of Hessen. In the south it is bound-

ed by the Alps, Lake Constance, and the east-west

section of the upper Rhine River that extends to

Basel. In the east it is bounded by the Fichtelgebir-

ge, the Bavarian Forest, and the forest of the Upper

Palatinate. The northern margin is formed by the

low mountain ranges of the Taunus, the Vogels-

berg, the Rhön, and the Franconian Forest. The

upper Rhine Plain east of the Vosges Mountains

marks the border to the west.

The more important low mountain ranges are

the Odenwald, the Spessart, the Steigerwald, the

Black Forest, the Swabian Jura, and the Franconian

Jura. Fertile agricultural regions are the Wetterau,

the Main Valley, the upper Rhine Plain, the central

Neckar region, the Nördlinger Ries, and the eastern

Danube Valley, called the Gäuboden. Southern

Germany shares two of central Europe’s largest riv-

ers. The upper course of the Rhine and the western

shore of Lake Constance form a vital transport axis

in the west. The Danube, the most important natu-

ral east-west connection in central Europe, arises in

southern Germany. Other signiﬁcant rivers that also

form transport axes are the Main and the Neckar.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

In late antiquity, the region was clearly divided into

two parts. The late Roman Danube-Iller-Rhine

limes (frontier borderlands) stretched through the

provinces of Germania I, Maxima Sequanorum, and

Raetia I and II west of the Rhine, south of Lake

Constance, and a line extending from Bregenz–

Kempten east of the Iller, then along the Iller south

of the Danube, and east of the mouth of the Iller.

The Germanic tribes of the Alemanni, the Burgun-

dians, and the Juthungi settled to the east and north

of this region until the western Roman Empire fell

A.D. 476. From the middle of the ﬁfth century the

territory of the Alemanni expanded into the former

Roman territory on the left bank of the Rhine and

in the south of the Danube. The Lech then formed

the boundary of the new tribe of the Baiuvarii,

which was under the sovereignty of the Ostrogoths

from

A.D. 493 to 536 and thereafter was afﬁliated

loosely with the Merovingian kingdom.

As early as

A.D. 500, Alemannic sovereignty

ceased with the establishment of the Frankish

Duchy of Swabia. Toward the end of the sixth cen-

tury, Frankish expansion also encompassed south-

ern Hessen and northern Bavaria to the Main. De-

scendants of the Juthungi as well as parts of the

Thuringian population then were incorporated into

the empire of the Franks or the Frankish duchy. As

Frankish colonization continued, Slavic tribes in the

eastern part of northern Bavaria also fell under the

rule of the Franks by the eighth century. The largely

independent Stem Duchy of the Agilolﬁngs in Ba-

varia was occupied by Charlemagne in

A.D. 788 and

converted into a duchy dominated by the Franks.

What is now southern Germany was occupied at

that time by the duchies of Franconia, Swabia, and

Bavaria. After the Treaty of Verdun in

A.D. 843,

southern Germany belonged to the kingdom of

East Francia under the Carolingian king Louis the

ANCIENT EUROPE

593

General features of southern Germany.

German. During the tenth century, under Henry I,

the Saxon king of the German empire, southern

Germany suffered heavily during the plundering

raids of the Magyars. These invasions ended in

A.D.

955 with the Battle of Lechfeld at Augsburg, under

Otto the Great.

ALEMANNI

The tribe of the Alemanni formed in the third cen-

tury

A.D. as a union of several Germanic groups

from the Elbe region. After

A.D. 233 this new tribe

participated decisively in the plundering raids into

the limes region, the provinces beyond, and Italy.

After the fall of the limes in

A.D. 259–260, the ar-

chaeological evidence reveals a lack of continuity of

a provincial Roman population. Roman encamp-

ments and settlements, including the villae rusticae

(farms), were abandoned and destroyed. The limes

region was not resettled until the fourth century,

when the Alemanni conquered and occupied it.

Several centers of early Alemannic colonization

are ascertainable. These centers include the upper

and central Neckar region, the region of Heilbronn,

the area around the mouth of the Neckar, the Brenz

Valley and the Ostalb, the Breisgau, and the Tauber

Valley, which lies outside the former limes region.

Especially striking in the Alemannic region are

many fortiﬁed hilltop settlements. Based on early-

twenty-ﬁrst-century knowledge, the building of the

hilltop settlements in the Germanic-Alemannic re-

gion of southern Germany on the far side of the late

Roman Danube-Iller-Rhine limes cannot be linked

to older local Germanic traditions. Yet models cer-

tainly do exist in the military and civilian hilltop sites

that were founded by the late third century in the

region of the late Roman Danube-Iller-Rhine limes.

The evidence indicates that Alemannic hilltop

settlements were not founded until the fourth cen-

tury and stopped being occupied by the end of the

ﬁfth century. Most of these sites were abandoned

around

A.D. 500, which can be explained by the de-

feat of the Alemanni by the Franks. There is no evi-

dence of continuity between the Alemannic hilltop

settlements and the late Merovingian-Carolingian

castles that occasionally followed. The Runder Berg

near Urach is the best researched of these sites.

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

594

ANCIENT EUROPE

In the former limes region, Roman villas contin-

ued to be occupied. This practice and the use of

land cleared by the Romans indicate that there must

have been only a short period of time between aban-

donment and reuse. In southwestern Germany, too,

most evidence of Alemannic settlement can be

drawn from the form of graves and single, random,

or accidental ﬁnds. Some larger settlements have

been excavated methodically as well. In the settle-

ment of Sontheim, which dates to the ﬁrst half of

the fourth century, excavators identiﬁed relatively

large post dwellings; smaller economic buildings of

post construction, including a round storage build-

ing with 7 post holes; and a rectangular area with in-

ternal construction (the largest measuring 70 me-

ters) separated from the rest of the settlement by a

massive palisade. This is believed to have been the

fortiﬁed residence of a group having a higher social

status. Great quantities of iron slag suggest that

ironworking was one of the economic bases for

Sontheim.

In the Breisgau, too, large excavations indicate

increasing early Alemannic settlement by the fourth

century. After the middle of the ﬁfth century, the

Alemannic settlement region expanded rapidly. By

then it included the Alsace, northern Switzerland,

the Swiss Midland, Upper Swabia, the region of Ba-

varian Swabia up to the Lech, and the Algäu. The

Alemanni who carried out this colonization until

the seventh century had long been under Frankish

rule.

The Alemanni did not enjoy political indepen-

dence for long. The end of the ﬁfth century was

characterized by conﬂict and defeat of the Alemanni

in battle against the Franks. After the defeat of

A.D.

496–497 and the suppression of their uprising in

A.D. 506, the Alemanni lost their kingdom and their

independence. Alemannia became the Duchy of

Swabia, a region at times more or less loosely con-

nected to the Frankish empire. Archaeologically this

fundamental change is evident in the disappearance

of the hilltop settlements of the Alemannic nobility

and the end of its cemeteries. At the same time, stra-

tegically situated settlements of Frankish warriors

and their entourage emerged in the sixth and sev-

enth centuries. Many of their cemeteries are well

known. These Frankish ofﬁcials in Alemannia also

included warrior groups of Thuringian origin that

became Frankish subjects after the defeat of Thurin-

gia by the Franks in

A.D. 531.

JUTHUNGI

The Juthungi generally are believed to have been

the eastern subtribe of the Alemanni. Archaeologi-

cal evidence indicates that they settled in northern

Bavaria in the fourth and ﬁfth centuries. This Ger-

manic tribe from the Elbe region is cited for the ﬁrst

and, as far as is known, the last time in the victory

monument of Augsburg of

A.D. 260, which at the

same time reports that the group also was called

the Semnones. No written sources on the fate of this

tribe exist. The last remaining members of the

Juthungi presumably were integrated into the

Frankish population in the course of the Frankish

development of northern Bavaria in the sixth centu-

ry.

FRANKS

Starting in the sixth century, colonists from the

Frankish heartland along the Rhine settled in north-

ern Bavaria, that is, the Main region around Würz-

burg and eastward, the Rednitz–Regnitz basin, and

the northern foothills of the Franconian Jura in the

area of the upper Altmühl. This region was incorpo-

rated into the East Frankish kingdom. The same

fate befell the present-day Hessen region of south-

ern Germany. These events are not conﬁrmed so

much by written sources as by cemetery ﬁnds with

very distinct Rhenish-Frankish elements.

The Thuringian and Juthungian parts of the

population that had previously lived in northern Ba-

varia apparently were incorporated into Frankish

territory without major difﬁculties. The only evi-

dence of this process is in the archaeological record,

primarily in the form of cemeteries and grave goods.

These archaeological sources disappeared toward

the end of the seventh century as the use of grave

goods began to wane. Only in the upper Main area,

where the Franks began to colonize the region oc-

cupied by Slavic peoples, did the custom of placing

burial offerings continue in the Carolingian-

Ottonian period. The name “Francia” for this re-

gion north and south of the Main—bounded by the

Saxons in the north, the Alemanni in the southwest,

the Bavarians in the south (the left bank of the Mid-

dle Rhine), and the Slavs in the east—does not ap-

pear until the eighth or ninth century. It has sur-

SOUTHERN GERMANY

ANCIENT EUROPE

595

vived in the names of the Bavarian government

districts of Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia.

BAIUVARII

The Baiuvarii represent the most recent Germanic

tribe of the Migration period that was of importance

in the development of present-day Germany. The

name is preserved in the “Free State of Bavaria.”

The ﬁrst historical record dates back to the early

sixth century

A.D. (alluded to by the historian Jor-

danes in

A.D. 551 or perhaps as early as A.D. 520 by

the Roman statesman Cassiodorus and, later, by the

Latin poet Venantius Fortunatus in

A.D. 565). Their

settlement area included parts of the old Roman

provinces of Raetia and Noricum. The name Baiu-

varii means “men from the land of Baia,” or Bohe-

mia—the old Boiohaemum of the ancient geogra-

phers.

If one attempts to draw interim conclusions

from the meager historical sources and the insights

offered by archaeological research, the following

model emerges for the Bavarian tribal genesis.

When Roman rule came to an end on the Danube

around the middle of the ﬁfth century, a polyethnic

tribe made up of Romanic and immigrant Germanic

groups (including Alemanni, Ostrogoths, Lango-

bards, and Thuringians) formed at the turn of the

sixth century

A.D. around Germanic allies that had

migrated into the area from Bohemia (the “Baiu-

varii”). Particularly important is the fact that the

massive and therefore practically indestructible for-

tress of Regensburg remained in the possession of

the allies of Bohemian origin. Based on written rec-

ords starting in the Early Middle Ages this was the

royal capital of the early medieval Stem Duchy of

the Agilolﬁngs.

Baiuvarian ethnogenesis goes back to the inter-

vention of the Ostrogoths. Under their king The-

oderic, the Ostrogoths had conquered Italy from

the eastern Roman Empire in

A.D. 493. This region

included Raetia up to the Danube, which formed

part of the diocese of Italy. Ostrogoth rule over the

region between the Alps and the Danube ended

only in

A.D. 536. In that year the Ostrogothic king

Witigis, who was forced to defend Italy against the

troops of the east Roman emperor Justinian, ceded

the region north of the Alps to the Franks under

their king Theudebert from the Merovingian dynas-

ty. The tribe of the Baiuvarii between the Lech, the

Danube, the Enns, and the Alps continued to enjoy

substantial independence under the rule of the

Agilolﬁngian dukes, who had many connections

with the Lombard dynasty. In the sixth and seventh

centuries settlement expanded rapidly and, in

northern Bavaria, eventually spread across the Dan-

ube toward the north. Under Charlemagne a split

occurred with the last Agilolﬁngian, Tassilo III,

who was deposed in

A.D. 788. After that, Frankish

ofﬁceholders ruled the Duchy of Bavaria.

SLAVS

In northeastern Bavaria, in the present-day govern-

ment districts of the Upper Palatinate and Upper

Franconia north of the Danube, archaeological

ﬁnds beginning around

A.D. 700 indicate a Slavic

population that had migrated into the region from

Bohemia. By the eighth century, there are also his-

torical sources that conﬁrm the presence of a Slavic

population east of the Steigerwald. These Slavic

groups were integrated into the Frankish empire

and were under the administration of the church.

Frankish colonists migrated into their settlement re-

gion from the west. In northern Bavaria, Slavs are

mentioned as late as the eleventh century. Many

place names in northern Bavaria still have Slavic ori-

gins.

THE MAGYAR INVASIONS OF THE

TENTH CENTURY

Beginning in the late ninth century, the nomadic

Magyars (Hungary), horsemen from the Volga-

Kama region and originally from central Asia, set-

tled in the central Danube region. They soon began

to terrorize southern, central, and western Europe

with their highly effective and devastating raids. Es-

pecially after the defeat of Bavaria in the Battle of

Pressburg in

A.D. 907, southern Germany became

the focus of the Magyar assaults. In

A.D. 926 the

German king Henry I paid tribute to purchase a ten-

year truce. He used this period to reorganize the

German army and build castles. The crushing defeat

of Hungary at Lechfeld near Augsburg in

A.D. 955

put an end to the Hungarian invasions. The archae-

ological traces of the Hungarian raids and the Ger-

man countermeasures have been well summarized

in the literature.

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

596

ANCIENT EUROPE

CASTLE BUILDING

After A.D. 926, the building of castles in southern

Germany was intensiﬁed to ward off the Hungarian

threat. While castle building in the Early Middle

Ages started on the initiative of the king, bishops

and monasteries soon added their own fortiﬁca-

tions. In the ninth and tenth centuries, the nobility

began to erect castles, one of the most important

bases of territorial power in the later Middle Ages.

See also Baiuvarii (vol. 2, part 7); Merovingian Franks

(vol. 2, part 7); Slavs and the Early Slav Culture

(vol. 2, part 7); Hungary (vol. 2, part 7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archäologisches Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg, ed.

Die Alamannen. Stuttgart, Germany: Konrad Theiss

Verlag, 1997.

Burns, Thomas S. Barbarians within the Gates of Rome: A

Study of Roman Military Policy and Barbarians, ca.

375–425

A.D. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1995.

Christlein, Rainer. Die Alamannen: Archäologie eines le-

bendigen Volkes. Stuttgart, Germany: Konrad Theiss

Verlag, 1991.

Czysz, Wolfgang, Karlheinz Dietz, Thomas Fischer, and

Hans-Jörg Kellner. Die Römer in Bayern. Stuttgart,

Germany: Konrad Theiss Verlag, 1995.

Dannheimer, Hermann, and Heinz Dopsch, eds. Die Baju-

waren: Von Severin bis Tassilo 488–788. Munich: Amt

der Salzburger Landesregierung, 1988.

Ettel, P. “Der Befestigungsbau im 10. Jahrhundert in Süd-

deutschland und die Rolle Ottos des Grossen am Bei-

spiel der Burg von Rosstal.” In Europa im 10. Jahrhun-

dert: Archäologie einer Aufbruchszeit. Edited by Jo-

achim Henning, pp. 365–380. Mainz, Germany: Phillip

von Zabern, 2002.

Gradmann, R. Süddeutschland. Stuttgart, Germany: Engel-

horn, 1931.

Menghin, Wilfried. Frühgeschichte Bayerns: Römer und Ger-

manen, Baiern und Schwaben, Franken und Slawen.

Stuttgart, Germany: Konrad Theiss Verlag, 1990.

Roth, Helmut, and Egon Wamers, eds. Hessen im Frühmit-

telalter: Archäologie und Kunst. Sigmaringen, Germa-

ny: Thorbecke, 1984.

Schlesinger, Walter, ed. Althessen im Frankenreich. Na-

tiones, no. 2. Sigmaringen, Germany: Thorbecke,

1975.

Schulze-Dörrlamm, Mechthild. “Die Ungarneinfälle des 10.

Jahrhunderts im Spiegel archäologischer Funde.” In

Europa im 10. Jahrhundert: Archäologie einer Auf-

bruchszeit. Edited by Joachim Henning, pp. 109–122.

Mainz, Germany: Phillip von Zabern, 2002.

Teichner, F. Kahl am Main: Siedlung und Gräberfeld der

Völkerwanderungszeit. Materialhefte zur Bayerishcen

Vorgeschichte, series A, no 80. Kallmünz, Germany:

Verlag Michael Lassleben, 1999.

Wieczorek, Alfried, Patrick Périn, Karin von Welck, and Wil-

fried Menghin, eds. Die Franken: Wegbereiter Europas.

Mainz, Germany: Verlag Philip von Zabern, 1996.

Zeune, Joachim. “Salierzeitliche Burgen im Herzogtum

Bayern.” In Burgen der Salierzeit. Vol. 2, In den

südlichen Landschaften des Reiches. Edited by Horst

Wolfgang Böhme, pp. 177–234. Monographien

Römisch Germanisches Zentralmuseum, no. 25. Sig-

maringen, Germany: Thorbecke, 1991.

HOMAS FISCHER

(TRANSLATED BY GINA BRODERICK)

SOUTHERN GERMANY

ANCIENT EUROPE

597

GLOSSARY

absolute dating: Dating using a chemical, physical,

or biological technique or by reference to dated

historical events that produces an age (or range

of ages) in years for archaeological remains rath-

er than simply a position relative to other ﬁnds.

One example of absolute dating is the carbon-

14 method. Also known as “chronometric dat-

ing.”

Aceramic Neolithic: A period in which people re-

lied on domesticated species and lived in perma-

nent settlements but did not extensively use or

manufacture pottery. Generally used to specify

a portion of the Neolithic in the Near East be-

tween approximately 8500

B.C. and 7000 B.C.

but also used for similar periods in Greece,

Crete, and Cyprus. Also known as the “Pre-

Pottery Neolithic.”

achieved status: Prestige and social rank acquired

through personal deeds. Antonym of “ascribed

status.”

acropolis: An elevated area of a city containing tem-

ples and courtyards. Some have origins as hill-

top fortiﬁcations.

ad sanctos burial: Positioning of burials around a

holy or otherwise revered grave or monument.

adze: A cutting tool with a broad and ﬂat blade

that—in contrast to an axe—is hafted with the

blade perpendicular to the line of the handle.

Commonly used for trimming timbers.

afﬁnal: Of or concerning a relationship formed by

marriage.

agora: A forum; an open area for a market and other

assemblies.

alignment: Positioning objects, such as standing

stones, in a line, often to mark a celestial event

or topographical feature.

allée couverte: See gallery grave.

alloy: A combination of two or more metals that

creates a new metal, as in the mixing of tin and

copper to make bronze.

alluvium/alluvial plain: Sediment deposited by

ﬂowing water in a riverbed or across a ﬂood-

plain. The resulting landscape is referred to as

an alluvial plain.

amber: Fossilized tree resin. A valued trade item

often carved and polished into jewelry, orna-

ments, and other objects. Most European

amber comes from the Baltic region.

amphora (pl. amphorae): A pottery vessel with a

narrow neck, two handles, and either a pointed

or a rounded base. Used for storage and trans-

portation of goods such as wine, oil, fruit, and

salted meat.

AMS radiocarbon dating: A radiometric dating

technique that counts individual carbon iso-

topes. It is faster and requires smaller amounts

of carbon than traditional methods of carbon-

14 dating (AMS = accelerator mass spectrome-

try).

androcentric: Male centered.

Annales school: An intellectual perspective empha-

sizing that different processes operate at differ-

599

ent chronological and geographical scales. This

school of thought also stresses the need for

adopting a multidisciplinary approach to study-

ing the past. Associated with the French histori-

ans Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, and others

known as Annalistes.

anoxic: Possessing extremely low levels of oxygen.

anthropogenic: Created by humans. Often used

with reference to soils and vegetation.

anthropomorphic: In the shape of or possessing

characteristics of a human.

antiquarianism: The study of ancient monuments

before the development of modern archaeolog-

ical techniques. Often associated with a lack of

rigorous methods for data collection and hy-

pothesis testing. Antiquarians interpreted pre-

historic remains in terms of the historic record,

so, for example, they attributed Stonehenge to

the Romans or the ancient Druids.

apse: A projecting portion of a building that is semi-

circular in plan and has a vaulted roof, like the

recess extending from the choir of a church.

archaeobotany: The study of plant remains from

archaeological sites, including seeds, plant ﬁ-

bers, pollen, and phytoliths.

archaeological culture: A term used to designate

a recurring assemblage of material goods associ-

ated with a particular time and space. Archaeo-

logical cultures are deﬁned by archaeologists

and may have little connection to groups or

identities recognized by the people using the

material goods.

archaeozoology: See zooarchaeology.

ard: An early type of plow that cuts into soil without

turning it over. Also known as a “scratch-

plow.”

armature: 1. A stone tool made for hafting. Often

used in reference to microliths. 2. A framework,

usually one used to support an object during

construction.

artifact: An object created or otherwise altered by

humans.

ascribed status: Prestige and social rank conferred

through heredity. Antonym of “achieved sta-

tus.”

ashlar masonry: A drystone masonry made using

squared stones to produce tightly ﬁtting joints

and a smooth wall face.

assemblage: A group of artifacts derived from an ar-

chaeological feature or set of features.

astragalus: A bone located in the foot that articu-

lates with the tibia (shinbone). One of a group

of bones known as “tarsals.” Generally called a

“talus” in humans.

Atlantic climatic period: A subdivision of the

Holocene epoch in northern Europe. Extends

from c. 6000

B.C. to 3800 B.C. Relative to mod-

ern conditions, a warm and wet (or “oceanic”)

climate characterized the period. See also Prebo-

real, Boreal, Subboreal, and Subatlantic climatic

periods.

auger: A drilling tool used in extracting soil sam-

ples. Unlike coring tools, augers disturb the

structure and stratigraphy of samples retrieved.

aurochs: The common name for Bos primigenius,

the wild ancestor of domestic cattle (Bos tau-

rus).

Austrasia: The eastern portion of the Frankish em-

pire (the areas under the control of Merovin-

gian and Carolingian rulers).

autochthonous: Term applied to archaeological

developments within a particular region as op-

posed to those introduced from outside that re-

gion.

B.P.: A dating convention indicating years before

the present, with “present” deﬁned as

A.D.

1950.

balk: The unexcavated edge of an archaeological

trench or unexcavated areas between trenches.

Used to preserve and analyze stratigraphy. Also

spelled “baulk.”

ballista balls: Objects, generally of stone, propelled

from a military engine designed much like a

crossbow.

barbotine: A pottery decoration technique in

which thick slip is applied to the surface of pot-

tery, often in designs. The result is a roughened

surface.

barrow: A round or elongated mound constructed

from earth and/or stone, often containing a

burial.

GLOSSARY

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ANCIENT EUROPE

basal: Lowest, as in the bottom stratum of an exca-

vation, or earliest, as in the basal phase of con-

struction.

beaker: A decorated pottery vessel, generally in the

shape of an inverted bell. Beaker vessels are

characteristic of an archaeological culture asso-

ciated with the spread of copper metallurgy

across western Europe.

berdache: A term for groups categorized as neither

male nor female, but rather as a third gender or

as transgendered. Also known as “two-spirit.”

biconical: Double-coned. Possessing a shape that is

widest in the middle and tapers toward both

ends, as in pottery, or, alternatively, widest at

both ends and narrow at the middle, as in some

copper objects.

bifacial: Retouching done on both sides (faces) of

a stone tool.

biome: A large-scale ecological zone, such as savan-

na or tundra.

biritual cemetery: A cemetery in which both inhu-

mation and cremation burials are found.

blade: A long, parallel-sided stone tool, conven-

tionally one that is more than twice as long as

it is wide and struck from a prepared core, often

by indirect percussion.

Boreal climatic period: A subdivision of the Holo-

cene epoch in northern Europe. Extends from

c. 8500

B.C. to 6000 B.C. Although the period

is part of the trend of increasing temperatures

following the end of the last glaciation, relative

to conditions in the Atlantic period, a cold and

dry (“continental”) climate characterized the

period. See also Preboreal, Atlantic, Subboreal,

and Subatlantic climatic periods.

boreal forest: Vegetation that is typical of subarctic

areas without permafrost but which have severe

winters and a short growing season. Predomi-

nant tree species include conifers.

bracteate: A disk-shaped pendant, usually made of

gold and decorated with repoussé designs. Also

a type of coin.

Breckland: 1. A region in eastern England occupy-

ing a portion of Norfolk and Suffolk. 2. (not

capitalized) A tract of heathland with thickets of

shrubby vegetation, especially heather.

broch: A circular drystone tower with a central

courtyard. The wall is generally less than ﬁfty

feet tall. Habitation occurred both inside and

outside the enclosure. The walls are generally

hollow, containing chambers and/or stairways

that access a roof walk. Associated with Iron

Age Scotland.

bucranium (pl. bucrania): A carved cattle skull

used as a decoration on a building.

burin: A chisel-shaped stone tool with a sharp but

stout edge. Used for a variety of purposes but

conventionally associated with engraving bone,

antler, and other materials.

burnished: Polished. Used with reference to the

surface of pottery and metal artifacts.

bush fallow cultivation: See shifting cultivation.

cairn: A pile of stones. Often used as a term for a

barrow made from stone but also used for smal-

ler mounds, such as those produced when clear-

ing a ﬁeld of stones.

calcine: To heat to drive off impurities or volatile

matter. Often used to describe methods for cre-

ating lime or reﬁning precious metal.

caprine: A term used to refer to both sheep and

goats.

capstone: A stone slab placed horizontally across

the tops of orthostats to form the ceiling of a

megalithic tomb.

carbon-14 dating: Also known as “radiocarbon

age determination.” See radiocarbon dating.

carburization: A method of heating iron in contact

with carbon to produce a steel-like metal.

Cardium: A genus of shellﬁsh commonly known as

cockles. Use of their shells for decorating pot-

tery is characteristic of Cardial ware, a Neolithic

pottery type in the Mediterranean region.

carinated: A term used in describing the proﬁle of

a vessel. A carination is a sharp break in a curve

that forms a ridge (an arris), as in the joint be-

tween the neck and body of a vessel.

case hardening: A term for various thermochemical

methods of hardening the surface of metal. Car-

burizing is one type.

causewayed enclosure: A monument possessing a

series of concentric ditches ﬁlled at points to

GLOSSARY

601

ANCIENT EUROPE